Nagual
Character
Money makes the world go around.
Nagual had heard that said often enough by people who believed themselves cynical, though he had always found it a rather charming understatement. Money did not make the world go around. Money built worlds, absolutely. It moved fleets, buried governments, revived corporations, purchased wars, and, on ambitious days, reached into the black between stars and persuaded entire civilizations to rearrange themselves around a sufficiently profitable idea. No, money did not make the world go around. It was the world. The Sith spoke endlessly of power, but Nagual had long suspected that many of them failed to appreciate one of its more important manifestations: a sufficiently large line of credit. That was why he had come to Aargau, and why he now sat in a conference room somewhere within the headquarters of the Bank of Aargau, surrounded by polished transparisteel, dark stone, and the quiet, expensive atmosphere peculiar to institutions that had spent centuries deciding who was permitted through their doors.
How, precisely, Nagual had acquired the room was unclear. The reservation had simply appeared where it needed to appear. The necessary security clearances had been approved by someone, somewhere, though no one presently visible seemed particularly eager to explain who. His name had passed through the building's systems without alarm, his credentials had apparently been found satisfactory, and by the time anyone might have thought to ask further questions, Darth Nagual was already inside, waiting for a representative of the Trade Federation. It was entirely possible that he had legitimate access. It was also entirely possible that several layers of highly paid administrators had decided, independently and without speaking to one another, that whatever problem he represented was probably someone else's problem.
For the occasion, Nagual had even dressed properly. His usual robes had been exchanged for a tailored suit of black fabric, severe in its cut and almost offensively elegant in its simplicity. Yet the garment possessed one subtle defect, if it could be called a defect at all. When the sunlight struck the material from the immense windows at a particular angle, patterns woven into the fabric seemed to shift beneath its surface, revealing the suggestion of innumerable pale faces and open mouths, as though a multitude of souls had been caught in the threads and were screaming soundlessly for release. Nagual had selected it specifically because it was understated.
He sat at the head of the conference table, fingers loosely folded before him, while a data-pad displayed projections, shipping estimates, capital requirements, and the skeletal beginnings of an idea that did not yet possess a name. The idea was simple enough, a new hyperlane to re-connect the worlds of the Core and provide immense profit to its financiers and architects. Nagual just had to find some financiers and architects.
